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  • Impulsore Chresto: Opposition to Christianity in the Roman Empire: c. 50–250 AD
  • William Tabbernee
Impulsore Chresto: Opposition to Christianity in the Roman Empire: c. 50–250 AD. By Jakob Engberg. Translated by Gregory Carter. [Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity, 2.] (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 2007. Pp. 249. $86.95. ISBN 978-3-631-56778-4.)

Was Nero the first Roman authority to persecute Christians? Not according to Jakob Engberg. Indeed, the main point of Engberg’s book, Impulsore Chresto: Opposition to Christianity in the Roman Empire: c. 50–250 AD, is to prove that the traditionally held view that Nero was Christianity’s first persecutor is wrong. [End Page 322]

Taking as his starting point the famous statement by Suetonius that Claudius, in 49 AD, banished from Rome all the Jews who were continually making disturbances at “the instigation of Chrestus” [impulsore Chresto] (Claud. 25.4), Engberg argues that not only Roman provincial authorities (e.g., Acts 18:12–17; Phil. 1:12–19) but even at least one Roman emperor prior to Nero probably persecuted Christian Jews (and, therefore, Christians)—perhaps intentionally so.

Engberg’s conclusions that “Chrestus” is an allusion to Christ and not to a contemporary named Chrestus and that Claudius issued two (rather than one) anti-Christian/Jewish edicts are not new, but they are more carefully nuanced than usual.

The same may be said for Engberg’s conclusions about opposition to Christianity between c. 50–250 as a whole. His close re-examination of all the extant evidence, including the (sometimes overlooked) material contained in the New Testament, confirms that Roman emperors were normally reactive rather than proactive in dealing with Christians. Persecution was typically initiated by private opponents, leading spasmodically to official action by local (non-Roman) and regional (Roman) authorities—such as provincial governors who may, or may not, consult the emperors (or already published imperial rescripts) for advice in particular circumstances. What is new is Engberg’s contention that this situation continued right up to the time of the “Great Persecution” commenced by Diocletian (c. 303) and that the “Decian persecution” (c. 250) did not, as conventionally claimed, radically alter church-state relations.

Engberg utilizes alternating substantivist and formatist approaches to combine both an emphasis on unique cultural or historical factors and broad theoretical principles or models. He analyzes the relevant data through the lens of a threefold typology of hostility developed by Gavin Langmuir: (1) realistic hostility (based on objective information), (2) xenophobic hostility (based on selective, often biased, information), and (3) chimerical hostility (based on nonempirically supported information) (pp. 30–32). Engberg demonstrates persuasively that although much of the opposition to Christianity in the Roman Empire was xenophobic (e.g., the alleged low class and low moral character of Christians) or chimerical (e.g., alleged incest and cannibalism by Christians), some of the opposition was realistic—based on the accurate information that Christians worshipped Christ but refused to worship other gods. To the Romans, this defined Christians as “superstitious” and “ungodly”—characteristics that threatened the “peace of the gods” (pax deorum) on which the welfare of the empire depended. From the Romans’ point of view, toleration of Christians was impossible in light of the threat they presented to society because of their “superstitious” and “ungodly” religious worldview and way of life.

In addition to providing readers with a new typology by which to examine the opposition to Christianity c. 50–250, Engberg also summarizes succinctly [End Page 323] and accurately the main previously held scholarly interpretations of the evidence. The book, therefore, is useful not only as a comprehensive survey of the data but also as a means of re-examining how one understands, interprets, and explains the data. Numerous typographical errors and especially the inconsistent spelling of proper names detract somewhat from the otherwise excellent English translation from the Danish original. Non-German readers may wish that the many quotations in German had also been translated into English.

William Tabbernee
Phillips Theological Seminary
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